Storm
by GreenNightStar
Summary: Bwen;- BxG;- Five-year-old Gwen Tennyson couldn't stop a fight with her biggest fear, thunder. But soon she is able to let her mind drift away on something else, something unknown. What could possibly put her greatest fear on hold? Bwen;- BxG


"I'm sure it's nothing, Sandra, you shouldn't worry about it right now in this dreadful weather," Carl said to his wife who was sitting in the passenger seat beside him.

"No no, we shouldn't keep going. It's a flat Carl, and we won't make it home if you keep driving with it."

The tall, broad man sighed and slouched his arms, deadening his grip on the steering wheel. The outer weather was brutally slamming her natural arms against the truck that the family was driving in. The sky was black, as it was late, and the rain was so blinding that the road ahead was barely visible. Thunder crackles would boom just after lightning lit up the void sky.

"Let's make it another half mile to my brother's. I'm sure we can sleep there for the night. First thing in the morning, we'll get that tire changed out and head back home. I'm sure Ben wouldn't mind sleeping over there anyways."

"Oh I think he will notice, you know how much that boy loves his bed."

The two parents let loose a smile, purely contained with happiness. Sandra turned to look back at her sleeping five-year-old. He was sound asleep and cozy in a warm black-felt blanket. The green tint of his eyes were shown by the mostly-closed eyelids that shielded his eyes. His brown hair had grown longer than that of most boys his age, but it suited him well. A free-spirited boy with a very adventurous spirit which longed to be released.

Carl maneuvered the large forest-green truck with complexity. The back left wheel was flat, as the vehicle sunk to one side and rumbled slightly from the lack of air in the rubber. He did his best to come up to an average home that sat quietly in the neighborhood - on the other side of town from their own home.

He sharply turned into the short driveway and stopped the car just behind a white van. Now stalled, the three sat in the truck for a few extra minute, savoring the peacefulness of the rain drops hitting the metal structure that they were housed in.

"Well this is it," Carl announced the obvious.

"Alright, I'll get Ben and you see if you can wake Frank up."

The brunette man nodded, but at the same time dreaded the fact that he would have to go out in the weather to quickly get up to the house porch.

Although, he was a very selfless man and understood that he was looked up to in his family. Without giving the action anymore thought of denial, he opened the truck door and began to run up the driveway to the front door.

He made it up onto the porch safely, but was now soaking wet and water was dripping like a waterfall from the bangs of his brown hair.

Carl knocked loudly on the door, and rung the rectangular doorbell that was attached to the frame which embraced the front door.

A minute passed with no answer, and Sandra came up beside him - also drenched from the rain - holding Ben in his arms. They waited patiently for one thing that seemed like it wouldn't be arriving. However, the door suddenly was pulled open and a young couple appeared in the shadows of the home.

"Carl...?" a man rubbing his left eye questioned.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you two, but we got a flat and really need a place to stay for the night."

Natelie, or Lili as she was called, rose her hands in a gesture to show that they were completely okay with the fact of being bothered by family so late at night.

"Oh don't worry about it, as I'm sure you guys would do the same for us. Come in, you must be cold." Her voice was comforting, but both Sandra and Carl knew that her temper was easy to provoke.

The couple standing outdoors waltzed inside the lightless home, glad to be out of the night rain and in somewhere safe.

"So uh yeah," Frank started while scratching the back of his head, "we don't really have a guest room, so you two are welcome to sleep on the couch."

"What about Ben?" Sandra asked while stroking her sleeping son's soft, and fine hair.

"He's already asleep, so we can just put him in a highchair and let him be, right?"

"Frank!" Lili cried out in surprise and elbowed her husband, but Carl chuckled slightly. He knew his brother was joking and needed the laugh after being through the stress of low-visibility weather while driving with a flat.

"I was just kidding, he can sleep up in Gwen's room. I'd put him with Ken, but that boy's room is such a mess that we might have to call a cleanup crew."

Sandra was a bit skeptical. "You sure Gwen won't mind? I know she's picky about her stuff, and Ben's not the best person about leaving things alone."

"Oh don't worry," Lili replied, "Gwen is probably already asleep and won't even notice him."

They stood around for another moment, and finally Frank went up the stairs of the dark home to fetch a blanket and pillow to throw on Gwen's bedroom floor for her cousin to sleep on. In the meantime, Carl and Sandra made themselves comfortable on the over-sized couch in the living room.

Lili carried her five-year-old nephew up to Gwen's room where there was a small sleeping cot waiting for him. She quietly tip-toed into the unlit room and placed the child gently on the ground and tucked a bright blue blanket over him.

Ben shifted slightly from the change in position, but seemed to go right back to sleep. The door to the room shut without so much as a clicking sound and he was left alone, save for his cousin sleeping in the tall bed beside him.

"Gweat, what is he doing in herew..." a whisper came from the side of the room, atop the bed.

Sleepy, and weary, Ben still heard the provocative words that had obviously been said about him. Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and looked around. Though it was dark, he had adjusted to the lighting with a natural sense.

"Hey...where am I awt?" his voice was also sharp and childish, the words of an amateur speaker.

"Youwr in my room dufus."

"Gwen's room...ewww yuck," he spat at the ground and pulled back with a grimace. "How did I get herew?"

"Just be qwuiet and go back to sweep. You are annowying me" Gwen threw her short arms up in the air in an act of drama.

"Uh Gwen? What does _annowying_ mean?"

The young girl sighed audibly. "Boys...they're so stuwpid."

Being called stupid was something Ben didn't take to kindly to at his current age. His young face grew red with irritation and anger.

"I down't have to listwen to this!" he cried aloud and sank back upon his pillow.

Meanwhile, Gwen pulled the covers of her bed back up in close proximity with her chin. The rain outdoors was a disturbing sound to her, and it caused her mind to lose focus on sleep. She could not rest whenever the sound of water continued to splash against her window.

A thunderous boom shook the house that she lived in, which made her shriek a little, but not to the point where Ben would have heard it. There was no way that Ben would be the first to know that she was afraid of thunder - or anything for that matter.

Yet, against all of her luck, lightning lit up the black sky and showed just how many clouds were stacked up on top of others. Soon after, thunder crackled once more and this time it caused the girl cramped on her bed to gasp loudly.

"Gwen, could youw pwease be qwuiet? I'm trwying to sweep!" Ben called out from the ground below her bed.

She didn't answer, and continued to shake without control at the head of her bed. Her eyes were wide and her pupils were unfocused. Gwen did not quite understand why the noise that came from the sky made her feel so scared, but it did.

Even so, with the blankets of her bed pulled over her, which she believed was the only thing protecting her from the monster in the sky, her body began to sweat. The heat that built up around her was warm, but no matter what, she would not remove the sheets or covers.

Little did she know, Ben was standing innocently at the side of her bed and simply watching it all go underway. He noticed how her bright, orange her would move along with the sharp quivers of her body. And how the sweat began to form at the top of her head and slide down her face.

"Uh Gwen, is everwything awright?" his voice was curious and gentle.

Quickly, all motions from Gwen stopped and she turned her head towards him - furrowing her brow to give an intimidating expression.

"Of courwse everything is awright. I'm fine!" she pushed him by the chest backwards and he tripped over the pillow he had been lying his head on.

"Owwch...why did youw do that?"

"Youw happened to be in my bubbwle," she whispered softly and turned her head away from him.

"Whoa wait...what's a _bubbwle_?" he had heard two unfamiliar terms in just minutes.

Gwen, who was getting tired of his ignorance, grumbled audibly. Reaching her arm out to hit him once more, another sound erupted from the clouds outside. It was a lingering noise, but also extremely loud. The suddeness of it caused Gwen to jump, but at just the wrong time.

Her body rolled off of the safety of the mattress and she landed right over Ben - who was slightly shaken from the loud noise and then something slamming into him.

With haste, Gwen scrambled away from him and felt exposed without the comfort of her blankets. She quickly crawled out of the landing spot she had fallen onto and scrunched up against one of her bedroom walls. She felt defeated by the scary noises outdoors and began to sob, letting the tears that had been building up finally flow like a winding river down her soft cheeks.

Ben blinked a couple times, being very slow at comprehending situations. Soon he realized that Gwen had fallen out of her bed and landed on him. He turned his head around where he could here the sounds of crying, and spotted his cousin with her knees up to her face and her head in her lap.

"Gwen?" he asked with a sympathetic tone.

"Just gow away!" she thrashed one of her arms out at him uselessly.

The young boy was confused, and he didn't understand why she was crying. He thought that her falling might have hurt her, or maybe it was because she had landed on him and got a bruise?

Timidly, he began to crawl across the floor of the dark room over towards the wall she was sitting against. He was a good five feet away from her, afraid of getting in her _bubble_ once more.

Gwen felt lost and hopeless, the noise had beat her and now she was on the ground in unfamiliar land of a dark place. If there were trees, she would have ran behind them and tried to hide. But she felt bare and open, like whatever evil creature lived in the loud sky was going to come for her.

Ben began to scoot closer to her, silent were his movements in case she was still mad at him. In time, he was merely inches from her own body, and he was sure that she knew he was this. But this time she didn't try to push him away.

In a fit of desperate rage, Gwen cried out, "I'm scawrd of the thwunder, okay? Now make fuwn of me like you auways do!"

Her crying began to get louder, as she expected Ben to torment her and use her fear against her own mind. She expected to be teased and made feel despair by her cousin.

Instead of thinking of ways to mock her, Ben began to think of ways that would make her stop feeling sad. He began remembering how his parents would cope with each other's feelings of sadness. They would sometimes give each other space, but when Ben's mother's best friend had passed away, Carl would console his wife with his own body.

Ben put one of his arms around Gwen and tried to imitate what his father had done. He kissed the soft bed of Gwen's hair.

"Therw Therw howney, sometimes peopwle have to move on." He spoke with a kind voice, but the actual words made absolutely no sense to what Gwen was feeling.

The instant Ben's face had connected with her hair, her head shot up. Shortly after hearing his words, Gwen stood and pounced back on her bed calling out words of confusion.

"Youw awre just so weird. Down't ever kiss me again!" she said just before covering herself back up under the light blue blankets that were dressed on her bed.

Ben fell backwards and stared at the last place he had seen her. The effect of his words was completely unexpected, after all, it made his mother feel better when Carl spoke them.

Gwen sat safely under the sheets of her bed. Her heart, for whatever reason she didn't understand, was beating abnormally fast. In her head, the thunder and rain was now blocked out and replaced by what had just happened.

She sat up and pulled the covers off of her head - looking back at Ben on the floor, the boy who was still shocked at what had just happened.

Turning her head to the side a bit and smiling, she chuckled just before falling back upon her pillow with a new feeling in her stomach.

No longer did she feel cold and abandoned, or even alone. Her mind was now completely focused on something other than fear or despair. Whatever it was, she didn't quite understand nor had she felt it before, but it was welcomed in her mind.


End file.
